A devastated mobile home community is shown in Fort Myers, Florida, after Hurricane Ian
A devastated mobile home community is shown in Fort Myers, Florida, after Hurricane Ian, October 2, 2022. Ian, one of the strongest hurricanes ever to hit the U.S., terrorized millions for most of the week, battering western Cuba before raking across Florida from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean, and then mustering a final assault on the Carolinas.
The death toll from Ian reached at least 51 Sunday as rescue workers continued to search for people trying to get out of their devastated communities, particularly in the hardest-hit waterfront communities in southwestern Florida.
The rescuers were “going house to house… to make sure everyone is accounted for,” Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told CNN’s “State of the Union” show.
More than 800,000 customers were still without power in Florida, which bore the worst of the devastation. Ian made landfall Wednesday on the state’s southwestern coast along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.
Most of the deaths have been recorded in Lee County, which was not in the original path of the first forecasts for the storm’s trajectory.
Eventually, Ian blew northeastward across Florida to the Atlantic Ocean side of the state and then veered northward, gathered new strength over the warm ocean water and made U.S. landfall a second time in South Carolina. 